Floods
by slightlysmall
Summary: In your dream she swims through the flood at the ending, swims and swims, and you jump into the water around your arena, too. If you both keep swimming long enough, you're sure to find each other again. Your arms flail in your sleep as you search for her, because finding her, holding her, kissing her lips again - they're the only things left that keep you breathing. - For Sam. -


Written especially for Sam (MissingMommy) for the 2013 Gift-Giving Extravaganza. I don't own the characters.

* * *

She comes back crazy. You understand this, you get her, even though you weren't crazy at first. The next year, you sit side by side and mentor two twelve-year-olds who die in the bloodbath. It's better that way, you decide as Annie screams beside you, hands over her ears. Now you both get to go home, and she never mentors again.

Your own insanity creeps up on you, crawling onto your shoulders so slowly you don't notice it until it almost overtakes you. But she creeps up on you, too, her love coming to baptize you away from everything bad that's happened in the past seven years. Her own insanity doesn't matter because one day when you are handcuffed to a bedpost and trading in secrets and receiving kisses you never wanted, kisses that make your skin crawl, you realize why you hate it so very much.

You are in love with Annie.

When you're both crazy, you feel like the only sane people in the world, and you wrap yourself in her love, whisper kisses along her throat and remind her that everything will be okay as long as the two of you are together. You don't tell her what happens on your frequent trips to the Capitol, just that you miss her and you will always come home.

The Quarter Quell comes with its wretched twisted rules and you hope she doesn't understand. When you're crowded together in the square, you look at the other Victors. A few women gather, all of their faces set and unreadable. All but Annie's. You wish you could run to her like you always do, wrap your arms around her and sing softly to her, bring her back to you, to the present. Anyone could go and be okay - either okay with living or okay with dying - but not Annie. It can't be Annie.

You are so focused on her you barely notice when they call your own name, and you walk to the stage distracted, trying to catch her gaze and hold it, hold her steady with your own steady eyes, but it doesn't work, because her name is next. You feel your knees buckle beneath you and guards hold you up and keep you standing.

But not Annie. The Games haven't even started and she's fallen already. Two Peacekeepers march her way with menacing steps, but before they get to her, you hear the voice of an old woman. "I volunteer!"

Mags. You don't want Mags to come either; you remember how she mentored you, how she kept you alive and gave you a reason to live in the days before you had Annie to love. You stare at her, catch her eyes as she marches to the stage. She remains expressionless, her eyes shallow. You try to shake your head at her, to tell you can't lose her, either, but her eyes narrow and she shakes her head first.

She is onstage and next to you and her eyes meet yours then travel out across the crowd to where Annie sits, rocking back and forth. When you shake hands, she whispers almost without moving her mouth, "I love her, too, Finnick."

You know the plan, of course. Get Katniss and Peeta out alive, no matter what it takes on your part. You know the Games will end before the clock strikes midnight and a Victor can be announced. You know your chances are good for getting out alive. But still you wonder. You wonder about Annie, whose screams you hear in the voices of the Jabberjays. Is she sitting at home on her plush couch, rocking back and forth, eyes glued to her television? Or does she do you the honor of turning away?

The nightmares you have the few times you sleep in that arena are enough to make you want to find a way out of life altogether. But you know you can't, because then Annie will have no one. Mags is gone; you can't leave her, you tell yourself when you drift between consciousness and unconsciousness. You can't leave her, too.

So you fall back into your dreamland where you watch Annie's panicked face when she arrives in her own arena five years previously. In your dream she swims through the flood at the ending, swims and swims, and you jump into the water around your arena, too. If you both keep swimming long enough, you're sure to find each other again. Your arms flail in your sleep as you search for her, because finding her, holding her, kissing her lips again - they're the only things left that keep you breathing.

She's not there. That's the only thing you know about the crowded bunkers of District 13. There is no Annie. It haunts you and you feel yourself slipping away, like she did, when you find out they captured her. You don't know how much time passes, but one day rebels come back with her. You rush to her side and you hold her close and look at her and remember all your love. You want to ask her right then to marry you, but you wait and hold her instead. You are together again; you're both finally safe. You have all the time in the world.

"Oh, Finnick," she whispers in your ear while you hold on tighter and tighter. She sounds more lucid than she's been in ages. "I was going crazy without you."


End file.
